Ineos has cranked up pressure on the unions by writing down the value of its
Grangemouth chemicals plant from £400m to zero and warning that it will
close the facility unless it can cut costs.

The privately-held chemicals giant, which faces a fresh spate of industrial action at Grangemouth from Monday, said it had lost £150m in the past four years at the site, which directly employs 800 staff.

It took the £396m writedown in the latest accounts for Ineos Chemicals Grangemouth, which were filed at Companies House at the end of last month and also show the parent company forgave a £465m loan.

“We had no option but to write down these assets,” said Calum MacLean, chairman of Grangemouth petrochemicals. “After four years of heavy losses, the petrochemicals business is effectively worthless. Without lower costs and an alternative source of additional raw material it will close in 2017, at the latest.”

Since it acquired the Grangemouth operations in Scotland from BP in 2006, Ineos has invested £1bn at the site, whose activities also include the company’s refining joint-venture with PetroChina.

Results have been hit, however, by the decline in chemical feedstocks out of the North Sea and a Grangemouth cost structure that is no longer competitive. That includes a £200m pension defict, which absorbs 65pc of all salary costs.

In an interview last month with The Daily Telegraph, Ineos boss Jim Ratcliffe said: “If we can’t address the costs, there’s only one ultimate destination unfortunately.”

Ineos has said it is willing to invest a further £300m at Grangemouth to ship in cheap ethane from the US – a similar plan to one it is pursuing in Norway. But Mr Ratcliffe insists this depends on £150m of Government loan guarantees and a cost-cutting deal with the unions.

Instead, the group is embroiled in a row with the Unite over Ineos’s disciplinary proceedings against a senior union official, Stephen Deans, allegedly in relation to his political role as chairman of the Falkirk Constituency Labour Party.

The union is now planning industrial action on Monday, including a ban on overtime and work to rule.

A Unite spokesman said Ineos was conflating two distinct issues. “What we have said all along is that the current dispute has got nothing to do with the future of the site but is over the unfair treatment of Stephen Deans,” he said.

“We have always said we are prepared to sit down and discus the future of the business. But we need to sort out the Stephen Deans issue first.”